When you're already talking on the phone and another person tries to call you, most phones and operators let you know that you've got a call waiting. Very few VOIP services support that, though, and WhatsApp wasn't among them until now. The service has rolled out call waiting on Android, but it didn't include the fancy call holding addition.

Previously, when someone tried to call you on WhatsApp while you were already on the phone, they'd hear it ring, no one would answer, then they'd get disconnected. For you, there was no way of knowing this was happening while talking — all you'd get is a missed call notification when you were done with your original call. Then WhatsApp added a small notice for callers, telling them their recipient is already on another call, but that didn't change much in the way this worked for them or you.

On a WhatsApp call and getting another call too.

Things are different now. If you get a second call when you're talking to someone, your phone will ring and you'll see the notification. You can either decline this second call and continue the first one, or end the current call and accept the incoming one. It's tempting to press that green button, but keep in mind that the active call will be immediately terminated and the person you were talking to will think you've hung up on them if you don't warn them before. Sadly, there's no call holding option, so you can't make either caller wait while you finish with the other person.

WHAT'S NEW

  • New privacy settings allow you to control who can add you to groups. Go to Settings > Account > Privacy > Groups to get started.
  • Added call waiting support so you can choose to accept an incoming WhatsApp call while you're already on another call.
  • You can now require a fingerprint to unlock WhatsApp. Tap Settings > Account > Privacy > Fingerprint lock and enable Unlock with fingerprint.
  • Fixed an issue which caused fast battery drain on some devices.

Call waiting is available in v2.19.352 stable (APK Mirror) and above of WhatsApp, and v2.19.128 (APK Mirror) of WhatsApp Business. For the consumer app, the latest stable release, which is rolling out on the Play Store, has it along with the group privacy setting we covered a while ago. You can also find it on the latest beta v2.19.357 (APK Mirror).

WhatsApp Messenger Developer: WhatsApp LLC
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WhatsApp Business Developer: WhatsApp LLC
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